Silence Dogood here. As longtime readers know, I love cooking. And I love watching (and screaming at, I mean, offering helpful advice to competitors and judges) cooking competitions like “Chopped” and “Iron Chef America” when our friend Ben and I are on the road and staying in hotels that actually get The Food Network. I also enjoy watching Anthony Bourdain’s series “No Reservations,” though I have to order it from Netflix.

But it’s frustrating not to be able to get any of these shows at home, since we don’t have cable reception. We get three PBS stations, and PBS has cooking shows, too, but in order to see them you have to have, you guessed it, cable. Grrrrr!!!

So you can imagine my excitement when I read that ABC—a station we actually receive—is airing the premiere of a new cooking competition series, “The Taste,” tonight from 8 to 10 Eastern Standard Time. (It will subsequently be aired in hourlong episodes, presumably at 9.) And one of the judges is none other than Tony Bourdain! (Fans of Nigella Lawson, you too can rejoice. She’s also a judge, along with Ludo Lefebvre and Brian Malarkey.) I hope the dynamics between the judges play out well, and that Tony is his usual snarky self.

From what I’ve read of the show, it’s unusual in that the judges coach teams of both amateur and professional cooks. I’ll be interested to see how that plays out. as I know from my own cooking, the skill sets required of amateur cooks and chefs are very different. I’ve never had to face the challenge of delivering four completely different meals to a table at the same time, all at the perfect temperature and perfectly cooked. It’s enough for me to get the same meal to everyone at the table at the perfect temperature and perfectly cooked! And imagine multiplying that table of four by 10, by 20, by 30… Yikes!

All a home cook has to do is dream and create great food. A chef has to be a general, overseeing his or her army of cooks, servers, busboys, and the like. Not my idea of a good time! Give me my peaceful kitchen, where I rule alone (at least, until the meal is over and poor OFB has to do the dishes, ugh), my music, my beautiful ingredients, and let me combine them and touch them and smell them and delight in them in my own good time. It’s quite a contrast to the hot, steamy, lightning-paced work that goes on behind a restaurant’s kitchen doors. But I digress.

At any rate, I’m really looking forward to tonight’s premiere, though admittedly I’m wondering how they’ll fill a movie-length program and keep it exciting. But if anyone could do it, that person would be Tony Bourdain! If any of you watch the show, please share your impressions with us.